Denver’s Eric Peterson is a rambling man.
His latest travel book, just out, is “Ramble Colorado: A Wanderer’s Guide to the Offbeat, Overlooked, and Outrageous.”
He takes us through the state odd bit by odd bit — but his best trek is walking the full length of Colfax Avenue, 30 miles in three days.
He starts way east, leaving his car at Lancaster’s Western Wear, 18885 E. Colfax Ave. Pretty quiet out there. “I pass moldy motels, plenty of fast- food and payday-loan joints, liquor stores and tattoo parlors. I also see a barber shop with a huge poster of Louis Farrakhan, a hip-hop recording studio, Little Baba’s Market, the all-nude Saturdays strip club, and finally a Starbucks — the first I’ve seen in walking seven miles west on Colfax.”
His first stop is for a beer and a shot at P.S. Lounge. He spends the night at Jesse Morreale’s All—Inn ($5 key deposit) and has dinner at Mezcal and nightcaps at Lion’s Lair and RockBar.
Things get more gentrified as he visits the Tattered Cover, where he’ll sign his book at 7:30 p.m. June 25. A mean lady at the front desk won’t show him a room at the Big Bunny Motel, so he goes instead to doze at Denver West Inn. He dines, of course, at Casa Bonita. He finishes up at Heritage Square.
An urban hike is fine, but Colfax?
“I always thought it was one of the greatest streets in the world. There’s history, culture and reality to it. I don’t find it scary at all. It’s not sleazy. It’s America.”
He had fun — but I don’t think it’s anything he’s doing again. Ever.
Yard sale.
Word comes from Steele Platt that life is good.
He had a tough run in Denver back in the ’80s, with failing restaurant Kailua’s and defunct nightclub Efex.
But now he lives in California and owns 20 Yard Houses, including the one in Lakewood, and he recently sold a 70 percent stake in the beer- house chain for about $200 million. Not bad.
Stepfanie with a F.
Stepfanie Kramer comes home to Denver on July 18 with a cabaret act. Friends and fans will dine around at the Palm, then go across the park to Lannie’s Clocktower Cabaret for Kramer’s take on the “Great American Songbook.”
You know Kramer. She played Dee Dee McCall on “Hunter” in the ’80s and ’90s and again in 2003. She has been in lots of TV movies, and she’s a singer in clubs around the country.
Her idea of the “Great American Songbook” is inclusive — everyone from Duke Ellington to Cole Porter to Burt Bacharach.
“I’ve always been a singer and songwriter,” she says. “One thing led to another, and here we are.”
The $175 tix benefit the Rocky Mountain Cancer Centers Foundation. Call 303-698-1151.
City spirit.
It’s a Sedaris attack! Amy Sedaris is at the Lab at Belmar from 5 to 7 p.m. Tuesday to open the86collective. Her brother David is at the Tattered Cover LoDo at noon June 22 with his new book and at Boulder’s Macky Auditorium on Oct. 29 . . . Sez who: “Some get a kick from cocaine/ I’m sure that if I took even one sniff/ That would bore me terrifically too/ Yet I get a kick out of you.” Cole Porter
Bill Husted’s column appears Sundays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Husted also appears Tuesdays and Fridays on “Good Day Colorado” on Fox 31. You can reach him at 303-954- 1486 or bhusted@denverpost.com. Take a peek at Husted’s next column at blogs. husted.
